Adolescent emotion regulation trajectories: The influence of parent and friend emotion socialization

With mounting evidence demonstrating the link between child emotion regulation (ER) and emotion socialization, we conducted a longitudinal study to understand (a) emotion-specific trajectories of adolescent ER and (b) how specific parent and friend emotion socialization strategies impact ER over 4 years. Participants were 209 adolescents (52.5% girls; M_age = 12.66 years; 75.7% White) and their parents. Latent growth curve models identified unique trajectories for anger and sadness/worry regulation. Anger regulation increased across time, whereas sadness/worry regulation remained highly stable longitudinally, lacking variance for growth modeling. Friend emotion socialization emerged as a more salient predictor of anger regulation than parent emotion socialization. Friend reward, override, and punish responses predicted initial levels. Friend punish and parent magnify responses predicted the slope.     

Associations between ongoing COVID-19 lockdown and the financial and mental health experiences of Australian families

In 2020, Australia's successful COVID-19 public health restrictions comprised a national “initial lockdown” (March–May) and “ongoing lockdown” (July–November) for metropolitan Victorian residents only. We evaluated associations between ongoing lockdown and family finances and mental health. In the June and September 2020 Royal Children's Hospital National Child Health Polls, caregivers of children in Victoria and New South Wales (NSW) reported the following: job/income loss; material deprivation (inability to pay for essential items); income poverty; mental health (Kessler-6); perceived impact on caregiver/child mental health; and caregiver/child coping. Data from caregivers (N = 1207/902) in June/September were analysed using difference-in-difference modelling (NSW provided the comparator). During Victoria's ongoing lockdown, job/income loss increased by 11% (95%CI: 3%–18%); Kessler-6 poor mental health by 6% (95%CI: −0.3%–12%) and perceived negative mental health impacts by 14% for caregivers (95%CI: 6%–23%) and 12% for children (95%CI: 4%–20%). Female (vs. male) caregivers, metropolitan (vs. regional/rural) families, and families with elementary school-aged children (vs. pre-/high-school) were the most affected. The ongoing lockdown was associated with negative experiences of mental health, employment and income, but not deprivation or poverty, likely because of government income supplements introduced early in the pandemic. Future lockdowns require planned responses to outbreaks and evidence-informed financial and mental health supports.     

Object Relations Family Therapy: Articulating the Inchoate

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in psychodynamic ideas within the family therapy literature. While some authors have explored the usefulness of psychodynamic concepts in the systemic context (Byng-Hall, 1995; Flaskas, 1993, 1996; Luepnitz, 1988, 1997), others have argued that psychodynamic models of family therapy should be given more credence in systemic work with families (Guttman, 1991). This paper describes Object Relations Family Therapy (ORFT), a psychoanalytic model of family therapy, in plain English in order to minimise the obscurity of some of the existing terminology and to emphasise the utility of more contemporary formulations. ORFT addresses the interface between psychoanalytic and systemic theories. It offers a way of conceptualising complex family dynamics at both the interpersonal and intrapsychic levels. It also integrates an understanding of nonverbal, unstated and often implicit processes in its formulation of problem development. The unique contribution of ORFT is elaborated using a clinical example.     

Top Ten Challenges for Understanding Gender and Aggression in Children: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

This essay identifies ten significant methodological challenges for understanding aggression and gender. In light of the recent explosion of research on indirect/relational/social aggression, it seems important to clarify gaps in our current understanding and to identify promising methods by which better answers might be found. The discussion begins with basic issues of definitions, contexts and subtypes, moves on to points concerning sampling and measures, and addresses whether current evidence warrants deciding that girls are as aggressive as boys. We conclude that although research has shown that the majority of girls' aggression takes indirect/relational/social forms, it is premature to conclude that boys do not also engage in these behaviors. We caution against assuming that physical and indirect/relational/social aggression are comparable in their developmental origins and consequences, and urge researchers to consider that fully understanding indirect/relational/social aggression might require different conceptual frameworks and research methods.     

Young Children's Emotional Attachments to Stories

In the interest of developing a more holistic and integrated understanding of young children's experience of stories, this study describes preschoolers' emotional attachments to stories and the cultural beliefs and practices which surround such attachments. Thirty-two European-American, middle-class families, participated in an interview study of their children's story attachments, and five of these mothers also participated in a short-term, longitudinal diary study. Every child experienced at least two emotional attachments to stories. Children were captivated by stories presented in different media, with many attachments occurring around video stories in addition to books. They expressed their attachments by repeatedly requesting the story, expressing strong feelings, and enacting the story in pretend play. Story attachments were social in two fundamental ways: children created relationships with the characters in their favorite stories, and story attachments emerged in the context of relationships with caregivers whose beliefs and practices supported such attachments.     

Audience effects on solitary faces during imagery: Displaying to the people in your head

Subjects imagined situations in which they reported enjoying themselves either alone or with others. Electromyographic (EMG) activity was recorded bilaterally from regions overlying thezygomatic major muscles responsible for smiling. Controlling for equal rated happiness in the two conditions, subjects showed more smiling in high-sociality than low-sociality imagery. In confirming imaginary audience effects during imagery, these data corroborate hypotheses that solitary facial displays are mediated by the presence of imaginary interactants, and suggest caution in employing them as measures of felt emotion.Avery Gilbert and Amy Jaffey had compelling insights throughout the course of study. We thank Paul Ekman, Carroll Izard, and Paul Rozin for extensive comments on earlier drafts. We also thank Bernard Apfelbaum, Jon Baron, Janet Bavelas, John Cacioppo, Linda Camras, Dean Delis, Rob DeRubeis, Alan Fiske, Stephen Fowler, Greg McHugo, Harriet Oster, David Premack, W. John Smith, and David Williams for their valuable comments and suggestions.     

Childhood innocence and experience: Memory,discourse and practice

This article examines how childhood innocence is taken up in (92) memories of undergraduate students across four sites in the US and Canada. Drawing from Foucault's theory of discourse, we examine how three themes—innocence as not knowing, innocence as being provided for, and loss of innocence as exposure to adversity—construct childhood as the absence of conflict, which perpetuates the myth of an innocence/experience binary and encourages a deficit perspective of childhood. These findings contribute to teacher education and childhood studies by highlighting the importance of interrogating adult memories in order to disrupt normative assumptions about children.     

Partisan Political Identification among White Ethnic Groups: An Historical Analysis

Abstract

This article presents evidence and argument dealing with partisan political identification among white ethnic groups. Recently, numerous political commentators and analysts have argued that the ethnic-labor component of the New Deal coalition is in the midst of collapse and decay, and that white ethnics are re-aligning with the Republican Party. Through an analysis of public opinion data gathered between 1936 and 1974, the partisan re-alignment theory is critically examined. The data show little or no support for the idea that Catholic and Jewish ethnics are identifying more closely with the Republican Party. Data show that degree of identification with the Democrats is nearly the same in 1974 as it was in 1936.     

An Evaluation of Caller Satisfaction with Solution-Focused Telephone Counselling

Abstract

‘Practice Forum’ is intended to provide a forum for social work practitioners to share their practice with others; to describe what they are doing and assess its effectiveness.

We extend an invitation to all social work practitioners to submit articles for ‘Practice Forum’ and we look forward to receiving your contribution.

The telephone is a potentially valuable intervention tool in family counselling. The Child, Adolescent & Family Health Service has been experimenting with a response which combines the traditional advantages of telephone counselling with aspects of Steve deShazer's solution-focused approach (deShazer 1985). In 1990 a study was conducted to evaluate caller satisfaction with this approach. Results indicate a high level of satisfaction with the counselling. At a time of increasing funding cuts and lengthening waiting lists, it is important that as many options as possible remain available to our clients. An expansion in effective telephone counselling services may well be one way of achieving this.